Umbilical Granuloma-surgery???

[Rose138]

Hello everyone,

My son is 6 weeks old. I had observed for a while his belly button-discharge, scab kept falling off then the healing process had to start again etc. My health visitor commented on it too to make sure I observe it closely. Last week I made an appointment and saw the Nurse Practitioner. She put on silver nitrate and said he may need several more treatments-weekly. So yesterday we had our second appointment. With our GP this time. She said silver nitrate simply will not work as it is too big. She said she would contact a paediatrician and let me know as she could not answer me when I asked what will happen next. The doctors receptionist phoned in the afternoon and said my GP has made an urgent referral to a consultant.

I'm just hoping to hear from anyone that can tell me more than I have been told by my GP! Will he need to have surgery??

Thank you so much in advance 😀

Silver nitrate usually works. But ds2 had a complex granuloma and over- enthusiastic application of silver nitrate landed him in the burns unit! So yes, it doesn't always work but neither is surgery the worst outcome. They will probably check that the umbilicus is properly formed but if it is then i think it'd be quite a straightforward procedure (the surgeon assessed ds2 and he didn't need surgery "only" burns treatment).

Rose Retired paediatric surgeon, I have never failed to heal an umbilical granuloma with silver nitrate but I have had many things referred as an umbilical granuloma which were not. Way to go is senior medical review. Good luck. It will get sorted, but it might need surgery if more than a granuloma.

Barbarian Sorry to hear that, the only trick I found was to protect local skin, with petroleum jelly (vaseline) for anything even remotely significant and to neutralise after 2 mins. Dabbing with damp tissue after 2 mins until it no longer has black on it is all that I advised.